Another Faith Crisis Letter

[RevTestament]

On 12/7/2017 at 7:23 AM, Anakin7 said:

        I recently came across this letter on LDS Apologia Facebook page which they have been commenting/responding  -   http://www.letterformywife.com  .Any comments/responses are welcome in your observation. Note to moderators, delete if this thread is not allowed or inappropriate. I apologize in advance. 

Anakin7

I was glancing through this letter, and one of the points was in the scientific section. The author quotes:

Doctrine and Covenants 77: 6 6 Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals? A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal [physical] existence.

The author goes on to state obviously the earth is much older, and therefore, the scriptures and the Church are untrue, blah, blah, blah.

I have mentioned this before, but have never paid close attention to it. Note that the author equates temporal with physical existence. However, I believe temporal is used as the antonym of spiritual. In other words the seven thousand years period is the history of the earth in its nonspiritual, worldly and secular state after the fall. These are all valid meanings of the adjective temporal. I believe it is when spiritual death was brought into the world. I realize this conflicts somewhat with what some Church leaders such as JFS have said, but then others such as BY and I think JS said that the world fell from a celestial state at this time - inferring it had an existence before the 7000 years began. Just wondering what your thoughts are on the subject. I am really just kind of taking a poll and collecting ideas on the subject. I am not going to challenge anyone.

 

 

 

[kiwi57]

15 hours ago, Thinking said:

What do all these statements have in common?

The blame rests solely on the disaffected member.

It's not about blame, it's about reality.

But then again, to the extent that disaffected members themselves start the discussion by blaming the Church / the members / "Mormon apologists" or whatever, I guess that's why there's "blame" in the conversation to begin with.

[kiwi57]

4 hours ago, california boy said:

Perhaps you are right.  Maybe Mormons are asking themselves that very question.  Are they just being bigots and homophobes in denying support for gay marriage?  Or as they see gay couples living a good and full life, enjoying the same benefits of marriage that they do, their attitudes are shifting despite the doubling down of church leaders.

Or maybe, since only about half of members are active, the shift in support is coming from those who don't care enough to attend regularly. It does seem that they would be more likely to be "tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine" than those who are more committed, doesn't it?

[kiwi57]

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Let's be honest.  That's not a question most people ask themselves naturally.  So if it is being asked, it is because they are being constantly accused of such horrid things by your compatriots.

I think there can be a shift that does not require capitulation on our beliefs.  Latter-day Saints can - and should - accept and respect same-sex couples as having lawful relationships.  However, they can and should also find for themselves that such relationships to be unacceptable before God, not unlike live-in couples, polygamous families, and so on.

The funny thing, though, is that live-in couples and polygamous families are not mounting non-stop campaigns against the LDS Church, with the attendant nonstop - and damnably false - accusations of hatred and bigotry.  These other folks are . . . simply indifferent to what Mormons may think and believe and teach.   They are generally willing to allow for differences of opinion on the morality of their living arrangements.  Your compatriots, on the other hand . . . 

Fred Karger, call your office!

Thanks,

-Smac

Careful, SMac. If I'm reading the mood of those in charge correctly, calling false accusations by their right name is probably considered "inflammatory" here at Mormondiscussions Lite.

[Thinking]

3 hours ago, champatsch said:

He didn't translate it into "Bible English".  You haven't even read what I just wrote.

 

4 hours ago, champatsch said:

That said, the Book of Mormon incorporates a huge amount of King James phraseology.

I guess huge doesn't mean what I think it means.

In my opinion it's really simple. Joseph Smith tried to imitate the language of the Bible. Sometimes the imitation wasn't perfect and may appear to be another style. My favorite example of this imperfect imitation is Alma talking to his son Corianton. He uses plural, singular, informal and formal in the same sentence talking to the same person.

“And I command you to take it upon you to counsel with your elder brothers in your undertakings; for behold, thou art in thy youth, and ye stand in need to be nourished by your brothers. And give heed to their counsel.” (Alma 39:10)

Where would this sentence fit in your analysis?

[Thinking]

3 hours ago, RevTestament said:

You will have to do much better than that old, tired worn out cliche to get away with that now.

You introduced the cliche in your post that I quoted.

4 hours ago, RevTestament said:

I mean we are talking about a back woods 20 yr old farm boy, who would have no experience with that syntax in his everyday life including the usual school books.

I was simply pointing out the other side to the farm boy argument.

[champatsch]

15 hours ago, Thinking said:

I guess huge doesn't mean what I think it means.

In my opinion it's really simple. Joseph Smith tried to imitate the language of the Bible. Sometimes the imitation wasn't perfect and may appear to be another style. My favorite example of this imperfect imitation is Alma talking to his son Corianton. He uses plural, singular, informal and formal in the same sentence talking to the same person.

“And I command you to take it upon you to counsel with your elder brothers in your undertakings; for behold, thou art in thy youth, and ye stand in need to be nourished by your brothers. And give heed to their counsel.” (Alma 39:10)

Where would this sentence fit in your analysis?

Well, I'm glad you've brought this up, along with a concrete example.  First, you aren't using the critical text, which reads as follows:

10    And I command you to take it upon you
        to counsel your elder brothers in your undertakings
        —for behold, thou art in thy youth
        and ye stand in need to be nourished by your brothers—
        and give heed to their counsel.

This has obsolete counsel = 'consult, ask counsel of' (see the OED).  This then is a direct clue that we are dealing with Early Modern English syntax.  Here we see a close mixture of T and Y forms.  Consider the following 17c passage, in which the pronouns of address leading up to the passage below are mainly T forms:

1636 EEBO A01902 Thomas Goodwin [1600 –1680] The return of prayers

Only let me add this caution, which may be of great use to you. That it is not always infallibly true, that when God draws nigh to you in a particular request, that that request in particular, shall be granted in that manner you desired, but it is a certain evidence that thy prayer is heard, and that the thing thou askest is agreeable to his will, and that he approves of thee and thy request exceedingly, and thinketh the better of thee for it, and he will give thee it, or something that is better.

Here's another with subject you:

1599 EEBO A13827 Edward Topsell [1572 –1625?] Times lamentation: or An exposition on the prophet Joel, in sundry sermons or meditations

Art thou a Christian, and hast thou not greater cause to wish for heaven, than David had for Jerusalem? And if you have, then pray with as great zeal, that thy will may be turned into action, thy lets into helps, thy wants into supplies, thy soul into piety, and all thy worship into sincerity.

Tyndale wrote the following in 1530, addressing his adversary Thomas More. We can plainly see that Tyndale employed thou shalt followed immediately by ye make, in the same sentence. The most likely interpretation of ye make is that More is the addressee, as he is in the case of thou shalt.

1573, John Foxe (editor), Works of Tyndale, Frith, and Barnes, page 324

Believe in Christ and thou shalt shortly find purgatories enou[gh], as ye now make other{s} feel.

Consider this biblical one, where ye and thee are co-referential.

Isaiah 65:15:  And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord God shall slay thee.

Here we can look at the Hebrew, and assign the switch to that, but the address pronouns are still co-referential.  So the co-referentiality of Y and T forms in the Book of Mormon is either Early Modern English or biblical usage.  Either one is explanatory.  Also, in case you're wondering, the 1611 King James Bible had plenty of subject you usage, since it exceeded subject ye in the written language by 1570!  Object ye was also part of English usage.  The Book of Mormon has a little of that as well.  Both LDS and non-LDS scholarship in this area has been shoddy.

I can give you plenty of other examples, if you would like to see them. I found a 1639 poem with 16 switches between T and Y forms in a relatively short passage.

You mention you have an opinion of this.  It is probably based on prior, defective "research", not more reliable research into primary sources.

Edited December 14, 2017 by champatsch
deixis

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Exiled said:

Could you give an example of a strawman Mr. Runnells uses?  

Sure.  There are lots of them, and they dominate his presentation.  Kevin Christensen, for example (here on this board),  noted that Runnells presents the LDS Church falsely "as though it were an omniscient calculating moral agent rather than a ragtag gathering of individuals doing the best they can based on the light they have been given."  http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/67025-smoot-nails-it-the-facts-about-jeremy-runnels/?page=1 .  Another example is "the proposed reconstruction of the vignette in P. Joseph Smith I (Facsimile 1) offered by Runnells on page 24 of the CES Letter. Here Runnells contrasts Joseph Smith’s rendering of the vignette, which Runnells asserts is in error, with a reconstruction he claims is “based on Egyptology.” What Runnells doesn’t inform his readers, however, is that this reconstruction was proposed by an Egyptology grad student (Ed Ashment) in the 1970s.[4] Since then other Egyptologists, including at least one prominent non-Mormon Egyptologist, have disputed Ashment’s reconstruction."  This was mentioned online this year at http://tarikdlacour.blogspot.com/2017/05/answering-letter-to-ces-director-7.html?spref=Facebook&m=1 , citing Lanny Bell, “The Ancient Egyptian ‘Books of Breathing,’ the Mormon ‘Book of Abraham,’ and the Development of Egyptology in America,” in Egypt and Beyond: Essays Presented to Leonard H. Lesko upon his Retirement from the Wilbour Chair of Egyptology at Brown University June 2005, ed. Stephen E. Thompson and Peter Der Manuelian (Providence, RI: Department of Egyptology and Ancient Western Asian Studies, Brown University, 2008), 25–30.

Quote

I have a hard time wrapping my head around why God would put in the archaic EmodE structures, assuming they are there, and not just mistakes like you would probably say that God instead of Son of God was. Why wouldn't God just be a little plainer?

The controlling presence of Early Modern English is a secular fact, and I don't know anyone who has a good explanation for that fact.  Pretending that it is not there will not make it go away.  Scholarship demands that we deal with reality.

As to the change from original "Mother of God" to "Mother of the Son of God" in the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon, that is only one of many changes in the text which have taken place over the years.  We see the same type of phenomenon in transmission of the Bible, in which pious changes are made at various points.  That does not change the nature of the Book of Mormon as dictated by Joseph Smith to his scribes -- which is the normative and controlling text for scholars.  Asking why God did this or that is a theological game.

Quote

I know you would say that I am trying to substitute my thinking for God's, but isn't that what you, and others are doing when you and others proclaim that the book of mormon is the word of God? What would you say if someone came and said they had a revelation that mormonism was invented?

Scholars are not much interested in the game of "let's pretend' or "what if," as much fun as that may be.  They deal with facts and with reality.

Quote

As for the so-called anti-mormon formula, (A) prophets should always be treated as men because that is what they are. It seems to me that believers are wanting us to view them differently and don't like it when the prophets are exposed as always being men. (B) tradition and doctrine - what is doctrine and what isn't and is there a test to determine which is which? (C) I agree that mormons should not impose their views on others  (D) If you are saying that it is unrealistic for science to show proof of disappearing dna, then maybe you have something there. Also, I would say that the absence of evidence sometimes is evidence of absence. But there is always hope I guess for the possible but not probable.

Again, you are confusing scholarship with pure supposition.  I have no problem with the declaration that biblical and LDS prophets are just men.  What I cannot understand is why anti-Mormons puff them up into something they are not and never claimed to be, unless that is part of the con by predators.

Careful scholarship should be able to adequately distinguish between doctrine and folk tradition.  Why is that anti-Mormons cannot?  Is it because it makes the con so much more fun?  

I agree that Mormons and anti-Mormons should not impose their views on others.  Shouldn't we all be less careless about that?

As to DNA, I would recommend that you read the LDS Gospel Topics Essay on DNA and then react to that, rather than coming up with a straw man version of the Book of Mormon and DNA.  https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng .

 

Edited December 13, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[Thinking]

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

Well, I'm glad you've brought this up, along with a concrete example.You mention you have an opinion of this.

Here's another concrete example.

D&C 25:15  Keep my commandments continually, and a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive. And except thou do this, where I am you cannot come.

This one is post Book of Mormon.

[Exiled]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Sure.  There are lots of them, and they dominate his presentation.  Kevin Christensen, for example (here on this board),  noted that Runnells presents the LDS Church falsely "as though it were an omniscient calculating moral agent rather than a ragtag gathering of individuals doing the best they can based on the light they have been given."  http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/67025-smoot-nails-it-the-facts-about-jeremy-runnels/?page=1 .  Another example is "the proposed reconstruction of the vignette in P. Joseph Smith I (Facsimile 1) offered by Runnells on page 24 of the CES Letter. Here Runnells contrasts Joseph Smith’s rendering of the vignette, which Runnells asserts is in error, with a reconstruction he claims is “based on Egyptology.” What Runnells doesn’t inform his readers, however, is that this reconstruction was proposed by an Egyptology grad student (Ed Ashment) in the 1970s.[4] Since then other Egyptologists, including at least one prominent non-Mormon Egyptologist, have disputed Ashment’s reconstruction."  This was mentioned online this year at http://tarikdlacour.blogspot.com/2017/05/answering-letter-to-ces-director-7.html?spref=Facebook&m=1 , citing Lanny Bell, “The Ancient Egyptian ‘Books of Breathing,’ the Mormon ‘Book of Abraham,’ and the Development of Egyptology in America,” in Egypt and Beyond: Essays Presented to Leonard H. Lesko upon his Retirement from the Wilbour Chair of Egyptology at Brown University June 2005, ed. Stephen E. Thompson and Peter Der Manuelian (Providence, RI: Department of Egyptology and Ancient Western Asian Studies, Brown University, 2008), 25–30.

The controlling presence of Early Modern English is a secular fact, and I don't know anyone who has a good explanation for that fact.  Pretending that it is not there will not make it go away.  Scholarship demands that we deal with reality.

As to the change from original "Mother of God" to "Mother of the Son of God" in the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon, that is only one of many changes in the text which have taken place over the years.  We see the same type of phenomenon in transmission of the Bible, in which pious changes are made at various points.  That does not change the nature of the Book of Mormon as dictated by Joseph Smith to his scribes -- which is the normative and controlling text for scholars.  Asking why God did this or that is a theological game.

Scholars are not much interested in the game of "let's pretend' or "what if," as much fun as that may be.  They deal with facts and with reality.

Again, you are confusing scholarship with pure supposition.  I have no problem with the declaration that biblical and LDS prophets are just men.  What I cannot understand is why anti-Mormons puff them up into something they are not and never claimed to be, unless that is part of the con by predators.

Careful scholarship should be able to adequately distinguish between doctrine and folk tradition.  Why is that anti-Mormons cannot?  Is it because it makes the con so much more fun?  

I agree that Mormons and anti-Mormons should not impose their views on others.  Shouldn't we all be less careless about that?

As to DNA, I would recommend that you read the LDS Gospel Topics Essay on DNA and then react to that, rather than coming up with a straw man version of the Book of Mormon and DNA.  https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng .

 

I read the church dna essay a few times and I have a hard time believing that dna markers were lost or disappeared. I am unaware of the phenomenon but it would be hard to test as the population with the dna that disappeared would always be unavailable.

[ttribe]

6 hours ago, kiwi57 said:

Careful, SMac. If I'm reading the mood of those in charge correctly, calling false accusations by their right name is probably considered "inflammatory" here at Mormondiscussions Lite.

Ridiculous.  Not even close.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Exiled said:

I read the church dna essay a few times and I have a hard time believing that dna markers were lost or disappeared. I am unaware of the phenomenon but it would be hard to test as the population with the dna that disappeared would always be unavailable.

Actually that is not true.  The LDS Essay is written by a scholar with a doctorate in genetics, and the statements he makes are correct in every detail.  Markers can and have disappeared, and we know why.  What I always suggest is that we test the skeletal remains at archeological sites suspected of being Nephite-Lamanite-Mulekite.  That way we don't have to depend on the difficult survival of markers into modern times, among some specific tribal groups.  Ancient DNA (aDNA) is the best option, but requires the recovery of skeletal remains, and it is not always possible to find appropriate samples -- especially in humid environments.

[Exiled]

41 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Actually that is not true.  The LDS Essay is written by a scholar with a doctorate in genetics, and the statements he makes are correct in every detail.  Markers can and have disappeared, and we know why.  What I always suggest is that we test the skeletal remains at archeological sites suspected of being Nephite-Lamanite-Mulekite.  That way we don't have to depend on the difficult survival of markers into modern times, among some specific tribal groups.  Ancient DNA (aDNA) is the best option, but requires the recovery of skeletal remains, and it is not always possible to find appropriate samples -- especially in humid environments.

So why do you think the church doesn't put some money into archaeology and find the evidence? Many would come back in sackcloth and ashes, I suspect, if there were some evidence here in the americas ...

[Thinking]

6 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Careful scholarship should be able to adequately distinguish between doctrine and folk tradition.

Or the brethren could just declare it from the pulpit or in official declarations.

[sunstoned]

1 hour ago, Exiled said:

So why do you think the church doesn't put some money into archaeology and find the evidence? Many would come back in sackcloth and ashes, I suspect, if there were some evidence here in the americas ...

The church as tried this.  Google Thomas Stuart Ferguson.

[Exiled]

31 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

The church as tried this.  Google Thomas Stuart Ferguson.

Yeah, one wonders if this isn't the reason we don't see Ensign Archaeology Co. down in C. America?

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Exiled said:

So why do you think the church doesn't put some money into archaeology and find the evidence? Many would come back in sackcloth and ashes, I suspect, if there were some evidence here in the americas ...

I'm not sure what you mean by "sackcloth and ashes," but the LDS Church has spent large sums of money on Mesoamerican archeology since the 1950s, operating serious research through the BYU New World Archaeological Foundation (NWAF).  DNA studies are very recent, and are only now beginning to bear fruit.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Thinking said:

Or the brethren could just declare it from the pulpit or in official declarations.

Which?  The official doctrine, or the folk traditions?  

[Physics Guy]

One view of the LDS Church is as a ragtag gathering of individuals doing the best they can. Another view of it is as an omniscient moral agent. But is it really fair to say that the first view is real Mormonism and the second is a straw man for Mormonism, fallaciously constructed by critics so that they can demolish it to discredit the church?

My impression is rather that these two views are two Mormonisms, equally real in the sense that real Mormons hold them. My impression is that many ex-Mormons who are now critics of Mormonism are not creating straw men, but are attacking the Mormonism, real if naive, which they themselves used to hold. In that case, accusing them of building straw men is unreasonable as well as uncharitable.

Back when I was first interested in Scientology I observed that there seemed to be two Scientologies, the "hard" and the "soft". Hard Scientology promised to confer psychic superpowers; soft Scientology claimed to be nothing more than gentle psychotherapy. Both hard and soft forms had good and bad points. Hard Scientology was wonderfully attractive but extremely dubious. Soft Scientology was perfectly plausible but absurdly overpriced for the banal thing it was. The trick I noticed among defenders of Scientology was a tendency to switch surreptitiously back and forth between hard and soft forms: promise the hard form to attract customers, but retreat to the soft form when challenged by critics. And on a larger scale Scientology as a social organization did the same, by deploying hard-form zealots as recruiters and soft-form believers as apologists.

Real religions also have the same issue. Some things can be disavowed, and the religion does not stand or fall upon the fantasies of over-zealous enthusiasts. Some things have to be kept, however, or the whole religion loses its point. To disavow some naive belief as a straw man creates the new problem of showing that the real belief is not so banal, in comparison with the wonderful-if-it-were-true straw belief, that no-one will even care whether it is true or not.

[champatsch]

14 hours ago, Thinking said:

Here's another concrete example.

D&C 25:15  Keep my commandments continually, and a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive. And except thou do this, where I am you cannot come.

This one is post Book of Mormon.

What's your point here?  It's obvious your view is that Joseph is responsible for the wording of both the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. My view, based on directly relevant textual analysis, is that Joseph was not responsible for the wording of the Book of Mormon. The early Doctrine and Covenants revelations were received in the same way. So, based on textual analysis, I conclude it is quite likely that Joseph wasn't responsible for the wording of early Doctrine and Covenants. This naturally extends to later Doctrine and Covenants revelations, which contain a lot of archaic language, some of which Joseph was unlikely to have worded the way it is. Pointing out Doctrine and Covenants language as if it shows it is Joseph's language (which is my assumption here, since you haven't taken the trouble to make it clear), is an unproductive line of inquiry. In isolation it might or it might not be. In the large majority of cases it cannot be used to reliably show anything definitive about Joseph and Book of Mormon language.

I didn't get from you any indication you had learned anything from the examples I provided above. Let me try to educate the interested reader further. (You may not be interested in this since you come across as ideological in your thinking.  Would 1,000 examples of extra-biblical, archaic lexis and syntax found in the Book of Mormon change your mind about the source of the words?  I wonder.)

When we read things online about address pronoun usage in the Book of Mormon, we almost always encounter inaccurate, naive views of it.  For instance, Roger Terry's 2014 Dialogue article doesn't make connections with relevant Shakespearean usage or OED entries. This is unfortunate.

Singular ye entered Middle English because of the influence of Old French usage.  There was nuanced variational usage between T and Y forms that can be pointed to.  At some point nearby variation was also possible without any clear nuance in meaning, as we see in the Tyndale example, and as can be seen elsewhere in the textual record.  The Book of Mormon has examples of this.

There was both subject ye and object ye in English.  The Book of Mormon has examples of object ye, as well as many of subject ye.

There was both subject you and object you usage.  The Book of Mormon has examples of subject you, as well as many of object you.  Subject you surpassed subject ye in frequency by 1570.  The 1611 King James Bible has many examples of subject you.  Almost all of these have been eliminated.

The King James Bible continues to have many possible examples of plural T usage.  I have provided one possible example above.  There are many others to consider.  The Book of Mormon has examples of plural T usage.  There are other possible examples of plural T usage in the textual record, depending on interpretation.

There was nearby variation of subject you and T-forms in English, in the second half of the 16c and in the 17c.  The Book of Mormon has some of this.

Etc.

Edited December 14, 2017 by champatsch

[Thinking]

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

What's your point here?

These patterns (which look like grammatical errors) show up all over the place (including the Bible) so how can a connection be drawn from Book of Mormon language to pre-Biblical language?

[CA Steve]

5 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

One view of the LDS Church is as a ragtag gathering of individuals doing the best they can. Another view of it is as an omniscient moral agent. But is it really fair to say that the first view is real Mormonism and the second is a straw man for Mormonism, fallaciously constructed by critics so that they can demolish it to discredit the church?

My impression is rather that these two views are two Mormonisms, equally real in the sense that real Mormons hold them. My impression is that many ex-Mormons who are now critics of Mormonism are not creating straw men, but are attacking the Mormonism, real if naive, which they themselves used to hold. In that case, accusing them of building straw men is unreasonable as well as uncharitable.

 

The saying that Mormons claim their prophets are fallible but don't really believe it ... comes to mind. 

 

If one were to start a thread on whether or not LDS leaders are perfect, there would not be much disagreement, until specific examples were cited. 

[CA Steve]

17 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Sure.  There are lots of them, and they dominate his presentation.  Kevin Christensen, for example (here on this board),  noted that Runnells presents the LDS Church falsely "as though it were an omniscient calculating moral agent rather than a ragtag gathering of individuals doing the best they can based on the light they have been given."  http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/67025-smoot-nails-it-the-facts-about-jeremy-runnels/?page=1 .  Another example is "the proposed reconstruction of the vignette in P. Joseph Smith I (Facsimile 1) offered by Runnells on page 24 of the CES Letter. Here Runnells contrasts Joseph Smith’s rendering of the vignette, which Runnells asserts is in error, with a reconstruction he claims is “based on Egyptology.” What Runnells doesn’t inform his readers, however, is that this reconstruction was proposed by an Egyptology grad student (Ed Ashment) in the 1970s.[4] Since then other Egyptologists, including at least one prominent non-Mormon Egyptologist, have disputed Ashment’s reconstruction."  This was mentioned online this year at http://tarikdlacour.blogspot.com/2017/05/answering-letter-to-ces-director-7.html?spref=Facebook&m=1 , citing Lanny Bell, “The Ancient Egyptian ‘Books of Breathing,’ the Mormon ‘Book of Abraham,’ and the Development of Egyptology in America,” in Egypt and Beyond: Essays Presented to Leonard H. Lesko upon his Retirement from the Wilbour Chair of Egyptology at Brown University June 2005, ed. Stephen E. Thompson and Peter Der Manuelian (Providence, RI: Department of Egyptology and Ancient Western Asian Studies, Brown University, 2008), 25–30.

 

Hi Robert,

Can you tell me how Bell's article negates the point Runnells is making? Or, how it shows Runnells is making a straw man? Yes, Ashment's reconstruction is dated and Bell's is probably more accurate, but Bell's proposed reconstruction also disagree's with Smith's. Bell is still showing a standard reanimation scene with Anibus offering a cup, maybe containing ointment, to the striding Hor, and instead of Hor's arms warding off an attack, he shows his arms welcoming the returning ba (or spirit). If Runnels had used Bell's proposed reconstruction instead, it would have made the same point, in my opinion. Bell is pretty clear about what he thinks of Joseph's  translations and reconstructions.

Quote

I would like to conclude this essay with an attempt to reassess Joseph Smith's place in the history of American Egyptology. In brief, Smith's approach to the translation of ancient Egyptian documents ranks him squarely in the tradition  of the esoteric interpretation of hieroglyphics. pg 30

Bell also notes how consistent Egyptological understanding of the facsimiles has remained since they were first examined by Deveria in 1859.

Quote

To summarize the overall results of this investigation so far: the conclusions reached by Deverria in 1859, based on his personal examination of copies of Facsimiles 1-3 of "The Book of Abraham" anticipate in detail most of the observations of the seven Egyptologist who-along with one Semiticist, John Peters- contributed to the F.S. Spalding's 1912 inquiry, as well as the Egyptologists who have discussed the Joseph Smith "Breathing Permit" since 1967. Taking account of the occasional breakthrough which have significantly advanced or refined our understanding of these documents, the consistency of the results attained by three "generations" of Egyptologist working intermittently and more or less independently over a period of nearly a century and a half, is striking. pg 30

So pointing out the Bell has provided what is believed to be a more accurate reanimation scene than Ashment, only further's Runnells point' that Joseph Smith incorrectly reconstructed Facsimile#1, doesn't it?

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

One view of the LDS Church is as a ragtag gathering of individuals doing the best they can. Another view of it is as an omniscient moral agent. But is it really fair to say that the first view is real Mormonism and the second is a straw man for Mormonism, fallaciously constructed by critics so that they can demolish it to discredit the church?

As a matter of historical and objective fact, yes, the straw man is a mark of predation by dishonest arbiters.  One has only to request an evaluation by a disinterested third party, which would include professional historians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, theologians, and the like, who are not and never have been Mormon.

5 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

My impression is rather that these two views are two Mormonisms, equally real in the sense that real Mormons hold them. My impression is that many ex-Mormons who are now critics of Mormonism are not creating straw men, but are attacking the Mormonism, real if naive, which they themselves used to hold. In that case, accusing them of building straw men is unreasonable as well as uncharitable.

There is certainly a psychologically unbalanced minority within any religion which exhibits these extremely naive views, and they may have acquired that absurd POV through being raised by disturbed parents who are rigid and ultra-puritanical.  I fully expect apostasy by the children of such people, but I do not measure the basis of a religion on that account.  On the other hand, when 80% of evangelicals vote for a pedophile for reasons of expediency, one has to ask serious questions about the basis of their religious beliefs.  It is no accident that Mitt Romney is so uncomfortable with such behavior, which might tell you something about Mormonism.  I am, by the way, not a Romney supporter.

5 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

Back when I was first interested in Scientology I observed that there seemed to be two Scientologies, the "hard" and the "soft". Hard Scientology promised to confer psychic superpowers; soft Scientology claimed to be nothing more than gentle psychotherapy. Both hard and soft forms had good and bad points. Hard Scientology was wonderfully attractive but extremely dubious. Soft Scientology was perfectly plausible but absurdly overpriced for the banal thing it was. The trick I noticed among defenders of Scientology was a tendency to switch surreptitiously back and forth between hard and soft forms: promise the hard form to attract customers, but retreat to the soft form when challenged by critics. And on a larger scale Scientology as a social organization did the same, by deploying hard-form zealots as recruiters and soft-form believers as apologists.

Real religions also have the same issue. Some things can be disavowed, and the religion does not stand or fall upon the fantasies of over-zealous enthusiasts. Some things have to be kept, however, or the whole religion loses its point. To disavow some naive belief as a straw man creates the new problem of showing that the real belief is not so banal, in comparison with the wonderful-if-it-were-true straw belief, that no-one will even care whether it is true or not.

The problem with the "good cop"-"bad cop" role-playing in conning people is that it correctly characterizes a conspiratorial and criminal enterprise like Scientology, but certainly not the Mormon Church.

[Robert F. Smith]

18 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

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Can you tell me how Bell's article negates the point Runnells is making? Or, how it shows Runnells is making a straw man? Yes, Ashment's reconstruction is dated and Bell's is probably more accurate, but Bell's proposed reconstruction also disagree's with Smith's. Bell is still showing a standard reanimation scene with Anibus offering a cup, maybe containing ointment, to the striding Hor, and instead of Hor's arms warding off an attack, he shows his arms welcoming the returning ba (or spirit). If Runnels had used Bell's proposed reconstruction instead, it would have made the same point, in my opinion. Bell is pretty clear about what he thinks of Joseph's  translations and reconstructions.

Bell also notes how consistent Egyptological understanding of the facsimiles has remained since they were first examined by Deveria in 1859.

So pointing out the Bell has provided what is believed to be a more accurate reanimation scene than Ashment, only further's Runnells point' that Joseph Smith incorrectly reconstructed Facsimile#1, doesn't it?

I have no problem at all with standard Egyptology, but Runnells is no Egyptologist, and he only uses whatever he can find to obtain instant gratification in his anti-Mormon objectives.  He is not at all interested in providing an accurate and full-throated evaluation of Fac. 1 -- thus leaving the reader with all manner of false impressions, which was also the result of earlier work by Deveria and company (Deveria being the smartest of the group).  I would prefer a more even-handed approach, in which standard Egyptological interpretations are compared with Joseph's explanations -- which Runnells did not do.